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en-usTechdirt. Stories filed under "bail"https://ii.techdirt.com/s/t/i/td-88x31.gifhttps://www.techdirt.com/Thu, 11 Jul 2013 13:27:52 PDTAnonymous 'Good Samaritan' Pays Justin Carter's $500k Bail After 4 Months In Jail For Online TrashtalkMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130711/11551523770/anonymous-good-samaritan-pays-justin-carters-500k-bail-after-4-months-jail-online-trashtalk.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130711/11551523770/anonymous-good-samaritan-pays-justin-carters-500k-bail-after-4-months-jail-online-trashtalk.shtmlJustin Carter, the teenager in Texas who has been held in jail (at times, in solitary confinement) since March because of an obviously sarcastic trash-talking joke he made on Facebook, which a woman in another country saw and reported to the police as a "terroristic threat." As of today, it appears that Carter is finally out of jail, thanks to someone anonymously donating the money for his $500,000 bail:

Justin Carter's attorney has confirmed that Carter is out on bail as of Thursday, July 11. An "anonymous good Samaritan" donated $500,000 to the Carter family so they could make bail for Justin, said defense attorney Don Flanary.

First of all, that's an impressive "good Samaritan." Second, this whole thing is a travesty. He clearly never should have been arrested, never should have been held in jail for months, and should have been released and had everything dropped the second anyone with more than half a dozen brain cells looked at what he actually said and the context of it. The fact that he's been in jail all of this time, and that bail was set at an outrageous $500k -- and, of course, the fact that he's still facing charges of making a "terroristic threat" -- are complete travesties, showing a justice system that is out of control.

“I believe the behavior here has been escalating,” Judge Lynn Rooney said after reviewing a half dozen records of police and probation reports prosecutors submitted at the hearing. “And it’s very troubling.”

The reports included D’Ambrosio’s arrest in June after a fight over $20 with his older sister, who called police after locking herself in her room. During the argument, D’Ambrosio pushed her and, after she locked herself in her bedroom, threatened to stab her, according to the arrest report from June 21.

Police said D’Ambrosio admitted he said that, but said he was just upset. The case was continued on Oct. 17, and dismissed on April 17, exactly two weeks before he was arrested for the Facebook post.

Rooney said she also was troubled by a police report from November 2011, which said D’Ambrosio threatened to shoot two eighth-grade students. Police said he admitted to making that statement, but was only kidding.

D'Ambrosio's past is far from squeaky clean and he seems to have acquired a reputation for threatening others. (He also seems to let his better judgement take a backseat to mouth/keyboard -- the officer who arrested Cameron after his Facebook post knew him from a previous incident, one in which D'Ambrosio was hospitalized after being beaten so severely by another student that his spleen ruptured. This beating was apparently prompted by some Facebook comments D'Ambrosio directed towards the other student's girlfriend.)

So, D'Ambrosio clearly knows how to make specific threats directed towards specific individuals. But it took a vague "threat," delivered in the form of a horrible/horrific "rap" to finally get him locked up, threatened with a 20-year sentence and denied bail. Even Sheriff Joe Solomon, who went to great lengths to read between the lines of D'Ambrosio's Facebook post and attribute him with things he didn't actually say, admitted the post contained no specific threats.

I do want to make clear he did not make a specific threat against the school or any particular individuals but he did threaten to kill a bunch of people and specifically mentioned the Boston Marathon and the White House.

The first part of Solomon's sentence is true -- D'Ambrosio made no specific threats. The second part? Not so much. For clarification, here's the entire Facebook post currently being declared a "terroristic threat" by the state. This includes some additional verbiage (in bold) that wasn't contained in previous reporting.

All you haters keep my fuckin' name outcha mouths, got it? what the fuck I gotta do to get some props and shit huh? Ya'll wanme to fucking kill somebody? What the fuck do these fucking demons want from me? Fucking bastards I ain't no longer a person, I’m not in reality. So when u see me fucking go insane and make the news, the paper, and the fuckin federal house of horror known as the white house, Don’t fucking cry or be worried because all YOU people fucking caused this shit. Fuck a boston bominb wait till u see the shit I do, I’ma be famous rapping, and beat every murder charge that comes across me!

Rapper addresses haters, makes grandiose claims, plays up street cred with criminal references. Positively unremarkable, except that multiple students reported this status update to school administration. This doesn't necessarily mean these students felt threatened. It's equally believable that D'Ambrosio's mouth, attitude and behavior made him less than well-liked at his school.

Sheriff Solomon then took what little was offered and ran with it, leading us up to this point. But you have to wonder where state prosecutors will go with this as it heads through the judicial system. D'Ambrosio's lawyer points out there's not much here for the state to work with.

DuBosque argued in court that D’Ambrosio was not a danger because he was not threatening specific violence, and police found no explosives, weapons or other writing about violence when they searched his home. The post started out as lyrics, he said.

Because D’Ambrosio did not threaten to use a weapon in a specific place or against a specific person, the post did not meet the state statute’s requirements, DuBosque said.

The statute D'Ambrosio is charged with violating will need to be stretched to cover a "threat" that fails to meet most of the specifications. But once the word "terrorist" is introduced into the mix, specificities tend to suddenly become vague "guidelines" as the law is bent, beaten and painted to match.

On the plus side, D'Ambrosio has more than a few citizens working towards preventing both the First Amendment and the tactless rapper from going down the drain. A petition created by the Center for Rights and Fight For The Future asking for D'Ambrosio's release has gathered over 70,000 signatures. The local Center for Rights has also criticized the judge's decision to deny bail (as well as the charge itself), pointing out that D'Ambrosio is facing a stiffer sentence than if he had actually assaulted someone.

As I stated previously, I don't have a problem with something like this being investigated. But the end result should have been little more than "loudmouth teen says stupid shit," and perhaps some court-ordered counseling or supervised probation, considering his past behavior. Instead, we have a high school student facing a 20-year sentence for saying the wrong thing ("Boston bombinb" [sic]) at the wrong time (too soon).

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]]>if you can't do the time, don't do the rhyme?https://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20130525/18020923213Tue, 3 Apr 2012 00:02:49 PDTMegaupload Defendants Get Internet Access Back; Kim Dotcom Allowed To Record An AlbumMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120402/02161018321/megaupload-defendants-get-internet-access-back-kim-dotcom-allowed-to-record-album.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120402/02161018321/megaupload-defendants-get-internet-access-back-kim-dotcom-allowed-to-record-album.shtmlgranted bail, we noted that it was rather silly that the conditions of bail included a ban on internet access. It appears that pretty much everyone involved in the case has actually agreed, and the terms of bail have been adjusted to allow all of the Megaupload defendants to have internet access. The US didn't even object to this request (which surprises me, actually).

What the US did object to, however, was Dotcom's request to be able to go to a nearby recording studio to complete an album he is supposedly working on. The US seems to question whether this album really exists as well as its likelihood of commercial success. However, the judge notes:

This Court cannot speculate on the success or otherwise of Mr Dotcom’s venture. The numerous varieties of modern musical genres suggest that there are probably unimagined audiences available, and modern legitimate digital distribution systems are changing the face of the music market. I could venture to suggest that notoriety alone could well be a marketing angle for Mr Dotcom’s venture.

In the end, he does allow Dotcom to go to the studio, but with specific requirements, including having to notify officials when he's going there, and only staying for four hours at a time. He has to alert officials when he arrives, at the 2 hour mark, and 5 minutes before he leaves -- and he's supposed to do so with a photo of himself on a smartphone (if he has a smartphone).

The US also objected to allowing the four defendants to meet in person, saying that by allowing them internet access, they could just Skype each other. However, the court agreed with the defendants that Skyping is not the same as actually meeting in person and is allowing that as well (again, in a limited fashion). The court notes that the "flight risk" that the US keeps worrying about appears to be exaggerated, though it's still keeping pretty strict limits on Dotcom and the others, and may revisit the rules in the future.

Of course, I'm still wondering why internet access was banned in the first place. It seems like such an overaggressive ban on something that's so central to the ways in which everyone communicates these days.

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]]>conditions-of-bailhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120402/02161018321Fri, 2 Mar 2012 07:47:32 PSTKim Dotcom Gives TV Interview Where He Insists The Charges Against Him Are A JokeMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120302/01273817941/kim-dotcom-gives-tv-interview-where-he-insists-charges-against-him-are-joke.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120302/01273817941/kim-dotcom-gives-tv-interview-where-he-insists-charges-against-him-are-joke.shtmlout on bail in New Zealand, he gave an interview to a New Zealand TV station. You can watch it below or read the transcript at the previous link:

Generally speaking, if you're facing criminal charges, it's probably not a wise idea to give public interviews to the press, and I don't see how doing this helps him in any way. He more or less lays out his expected argument concerning the copyright infringement claims, which are pretty much what you'd expect: that they followed the DMCA, took stuff down on request, and even gave copyright holders special access by which they could take links down themselves. Dotcom is clearly very well versed in the legal issues here, and he's choosing his words extremely carefully, but it still seems a bit silly to reveal such arguments outside of court, and it could come back to haunt him later (you can bet US prosecutors are pouring over every word to figure out what they can hang him on.

Also, while the interview focuses on the copyright issues, it avoids the key part of the charges, which is the criminal conspiracy issue. Obviously, those are built off of the copyright claims, but just fighting the copyright claims and ignoring the conspiracy charges is unlikely to be a winning strategy.

One key point he raises in the interview is the fact that, despite being in business for seven years, no MPAA studio ever took any legal action against them other than sending DMCA takedown notices which he claims they obeyed (the indictment suggests that Megaupload didn't necessarily have the greatest record on following takedowns):

JC: CNET, in an article that looked pretty well researched to me and well sourced said, and I quote, “among the copyright owners who’ve accused Megaupload of piracy, including software and video game companies none of them presented the FBI with more, quote, significant evidence, end quote, about Megaupload than the MPAA. Did any members of the MPAA come to you and say “we have concerns, Kim, about what’s going on in Megaupload”.

KD: Never. And I gotta tell you this – if you are a company that is hurt so much by what we are doing, billions of dollars of damage, you don’t wait and sit and do nothing. You call your lawyers and you try and sue us and try to stop us from what we are doing.

JC: So a cease and desist of some form or other. Did you ever receive any letters from members of the MPAA saying “the latest James Bond film is being exchanged, ad infinitum, through Megaupload, you must stop it”? Did you ever receive…

KD: Absolutely not. No legal document has ever reached us from any of these studios. The only thing that we get is Takedown Notices and them using the direct delete access on our website. So, isn’t it surprising to you that when I’m the pirate king and I’m causing all this damage that none of them has ever even attempted to sue us, to sue us for damages, you know? If you would run a business that loses billions of dollars because of me, you wouldn’t just sit there and do nothing. I mean, this investigation was ongoing for over two years, you know, the company was live for over seven years, the MPAA has always thrown names at us and called us all kinds of things but they’ve never actually done anything to you know, take us to court and for the very simple reason that there is a law in the US that protects us which is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that protects online service providers from actions of their users and this is the same law that allowed Google to still exist, that allowed YouTube to still exist. You know that Viacom sued YouTube and YouTube claimed that they were protected by the DMCA and they won. And if you look at the YouTube case files, the emails that were exchanged internally we are a lamb compared to what was going on at YouTube at the time but these guys got away. They won their lawsuit and I’m sitting in jail, my house is being raided, all my assets are frozen without a trial, without a hearing. This is completely insane, is what it is.

Elsewhere he notes that he's an easy target because of his "flamboyant" past, but that, alone isn't illegal. But he also responds to the basic questions pretty clearly, noting that they can't proactively monitor the service, because (1) that's not required by law (2) it's technically impossible and (3) it could raise privacy questions under US law (that part might be a stretch, since the uploads weren't private, but public).

I still think there are serious problems with the lawsuit, but the case against him is a bit bigger than what he portrays in the interview, and he's going to need a much stronger defense if he's going to actually win the case.

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]]>making-his-casehttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120302/01273817941Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:08:58 PSTMegaupload Boss Kim Dotcom Granted Bail After US Fails To Prove He's Got Cash Stashed Away To Make An EscapeMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120221/14490517833/megaupload-boss-kim-dotcom-granted-bail-after-us-fails-to-prove-hes-got-cash-stashed-away-to-make-escape.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120221/14490517833/megaupload-boss-kim-dotcom-granted-bail-after-us-fails-to-prove-hes-got-cash-stashed-away-to-make-escape.shtmlfinally granted him bail after no one could show him having access to vast funds elsewhere that he could use to make a run for it. Apparently, US officials insisted that he must have those funds, but couldn't produce any evidence, and the court realized that's not a particularly good reason to keep him locked up:

In the North Shore District Court this morning, Justice Nevin Dawson said that after a long time where officials could investigate the Dotcom's potential access to funds - none of significance had been found. Justice Dawson said it was "highly unlikely" that he had other financial resources available to him that had not already been seized.

Prosecution acting for the United States Government had said that because Dotcom was "very wealthy" it was probably he had more bank accounts.

However, Justice Dawson said that put Dotcom in the position of having to "prove a negative" and that assertion was not enough to imply his flight risk.

Four new bank accounts were discovered in the Philippines, but they were empty, he said.

"The suspicion that Mr. Dotcom is very wealthy is not evidence of further assets and cannot be used against him."

I've certainly noticed attempts by many to try Dotcom based on his outward appearance or the fact that he clearly was a show off who flung money around. And I can understand that desire. But, any trial should be based on the actual facts against him, not the fact that he was apparently tacky and a showoff when he spent money. If that, alone, was a crime, then tons of famous musicians, movie stars and athletes deserve the same treatment.

That said, the conditions of bail include no internet usage, which (as we've noted in the past) is pretty ridiculous, since nearly everything touches the internet these days, including popular phone systems. It seems perfectly reasonable to say that he can't have anything to do with cyberlockers or Megaupload or such, but a complete internet ban seems extreme.